After Popular Uprisings, Concern in Russia

NEW YORK, NY -- In the first decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy took root in most of its republics in name only. With the exception of the Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, now deeply entwined in Europe - new political systems and new leaders emerged from the post-Soviet chaos promising freedoms but somehow managing to ensure that those freedoms led to the continuation of their power.

In the past year and a half, however, popular uprisings have claimed the sclerotic leaders of three former Soviet republics. In Georgia in November 2003, in Ukraine a year later, and now in Kyrgyzstan, simmering discontent accomplished what not long ago seemed improbable: the peaceful (so far, in Kyrgyzstan's case) overthrow of governments that ceased to represent the will of the people.


USSR Back in 1950
What is most surprising really is how quickly those governments fell in the face of protesters asserting the rights they had been promised when the Soviet yoke was lifted: the right to express themselves, to elect their representatives, to dream of the better life that their leaders kept promising but all too often failed to deliver.

For opposition leaders and even for some of those in power in other republics, the events that began in Georgia with the toppling of Eduard Shevardnadze and continued with the extraordinary challenge to a fraudulent election in Ukraine last fall have come like a contagion - one spreading in fast and unpredictable ways.

Nowhere is the fear and anticipation greater than in the largest and most powerful center, Russia. There President Vladimir Putin has steadily strengthened state control even as he presents himself as a democrat.

"People are tired everywhere," Aleksandr Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International studies, said in a telephone interview from Georgia's capital, Tblisi, referring to popular discontent in the former Soviet republics.

The uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine, he added, served as a demonstration what was possible.

"They saw how easy it looked on TV," Rondeli said.

President Askar Akayev, the leader of Kyrgyzstan throughout its 13-plus-years of post-Soviet independence, fled the country's capital, Bishkek, after throngs protesting what they called fraudulent parliamentary elections stormed government buildings and Akayev's security forces evaporated.

Like Shevardnadze and President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine before him, Akayev appeared to believe that the state's authority - its control over politics, law enforcement and the media - could dictate the terms of a nominally democratic process to favor their chosen candidates in parliamentary elections, or in Ukraine's case, the selection of Kuchma's hand-picked successor.

Whether the contagion of democratic expression spreads remains to be seen, of course. Two former Soviet republics - Belarus and Turkmenistan - have become dictatorships of different degrees, squelching political opposition and tightening the screws over most parts of society.

President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan had his Parliament declare him president for life and tolerates no dissent. President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus last fall orchestrated a referendum that would allow him to run for re-election indefinitely - and his security forces broke up the small demonstrations that followed.

Andranink Migranyan, a professor and political scientist at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said that challenges to power in former Soviet states depended in large degree to the willingness of the authorities to use forceful means to preserve their power.

In Georgia and Ukraine, he noted, Shevardnadze and Kuchma declined - or were unable - to use security forces to put down protests. Ironically, the leaders who have at least nominally presented themselves as democrats have proved less able to preserve themselves through democratic means.

"You must either be more adamant in using force and destroying the opposition or let others come to power," Migranyan said in a telephone interview.

"The difference between Akayev and Lukashenko is that Akayev is more democratic," he said. "And he is the loser. He is not the dictator that Lukashenko is - the same with Kuchma."

Officials in Russia reacted to the events in Georgia and Ukraine with shock and disdain. Putin, who himself is accused of tightening control over what is left of a democratic system, openly supported Kuchma's chosen successor. He has cultivated ties with the autocratic leaders of the five Central Asian states, including Akayev, seemingly indifferent to accusations that their rule amounts to authoritarianism.

Stung by criticism of Russia's role in Ukraine's elections, Putin and other officials kept a much lower profile as Kyrgyzstan's parliamentary elections unfolded over two rounds. As the unrest mounted, however, Russian officials began to revert to form, appealing for order and stability - meaning the status quo - while criticizing those who were calling for democracy.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned Thursday of "the consequences than can evolve from attempts to come to power by illegal means." Russia's top military commander, General Yuri Baluyevsky, characterized those challenging Akayev as drug-addled instigators disturbing the public order.

"We hope and believe that the actions of the crowd, heated up by drugs, will not lead to complete destabilization in the republic," he said, according to Russian news agencies.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, rumors have swirled in Russia about Putin's own political future in the wake of the recent upheavals in the former Soviet neighborhood. Putin was re-elected to a second and, according to the Constitution, final term as president last year.

Despite his repeated assertions that he would not change the Constitution to allow a third term - or more - numerous analysts and commentators have speculated that the Kremlin is considering ways he might yet remain in power after 2008, either by abrogating his promises or changing the Constitution to allow him to serve as a newly empowered prime minister.

At the same time, voices of opposition have emerged.

Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister under Putin, emerged publicly to say that he was prepared to support the opposition, which remains in disarray, but may yet find its cause.